


the kids all dream of making it, whatever that means

by leadbitter



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Bristol Rovers F.C., Club Loyalty, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 08:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16215179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leadbitter/pseuds/leadbitter
Summary: losses in the slating rain, last minute equalisers in the march half-sun. the crowd reluctantly clapping you off the pitch, don’t particularly want to but they feel like they owe you something, like, we’re sorry you have to play for us.





	the kids all dream of making it, whatever that means

**Author's Note:**

> also known as, evie madly rants about loyalty and dreams. 
> 
> i wrote this flat out in like an hour and a half without even meaning to, oops, but i think theres no grammar mistakes(?)
> 
> loves yous x
> 
> title from teddy picker - arctic monkeys

Ollie knows enough about life (and Bristol) to not expect fairytales. Losses in the slating rain, last minute equalisers in the March half-sun. The crowd reluctantly clapping you off the pitch, don’t particularly want to but they feel like they owe you something, like _we’re sorry you have to play for us_. Long trips up north only to end in defeat, sometimes at your own fault, sometimes out of a sheer lack of luck, but that is just it. There’s never a happy ending in the dim light of Horfield.

 

 _But maybe_ , says whatever's left of his Portishead upbringing, _maybe they can change._

 

Thought maybe their luck had appeared after Pitman’s miss at Wembley, after Matty’s shot fell kindly to Lee. Back to back promotion. That doesn’t happen to cursed clubs, does it? Maybe this is their retribution against the Football League, maybe this is the evolution Ollie and all the other academy boys had been waiting for.

 

(His delusions of grandeur end about as soon as they appeared. Linesy telling him that it doesn’t last forever. Ollie’s nods at him; Chris knows this kind of stuff, local as well and he is the club personified. He’d seen Rovers promoted in 2007, an incredible feat, and he’d seen them relegated four years later after steadily declining seasons.)

 

What Ollie doesn’t know, however, is that the young boys still have the dreams he used to have, about promotion and cup runs and unbeaten streaks, about the _Championship_. Doesn’t understand the kicked-puppy faces of Russey and Cam and Sprucey, when he tells them it’s all bullshit, hope of success and anything more than survival by the skin of their teeth.

 

He’s grown cynical, and only really Kelly tells him this. Because see, Michael Kelly has had enough hardship to know that it's not all sunshine and roses, but he’s still young and he still believes that there’s always a chance. _Don’t knock ‘em too hard, eh, Clarkey._ And he looks fondly at them, only a year or two older than most of them but already been through too much. _Just cause they aren’t old and bitter like you. Aye,_ old _and_ bitter _. Don’t give me that face, let ‘em have their dreams._

 

Ollie is not bitter. Not bitter about his injuries. Not bitter about the lack of trust in him. Not bitter than everyone thinks he’s too angry and too aggressive. Not bitter, not bitter, not bitter-

 

He’d die for this club, and maybe nothing he says will make people believe it. ( _Probably do a fucking Matty Taylor won’t he, wasn’t his dad a City fan?_ ) And, yeah, his dad did like Bristol City, but Ollie? Joined Rovers’ academy at 11 and never looked back. Those few years of red have been plastered over with 15 of blue.

There seems to be an assumption that as soon as a half-decent club give him a look in, he’ll bolt. Christ, people think he has no loyalty. The truth is, only if the Premier League came calling would he be tempted. 

 

He didn’t say _i won’t leave unless i’m told i’m not wanted_ just for show. The thought of not being able to go back to Portishead at the drop of a hat, not driving up Filton Avenue on a Saturday, not walking out to a roaring Mem (terraces, strange stands and all), not feeling the warm rush of affection when the ground sings Goodnight Irene, not arguing with James about who’s the better Clarke only for Darrell to step in and say _we know who the real winner is, don’t we lads?_ ; it all sets him on edge, the idea that every constant he’s ever known, everything that he’s so easily taken for granted could be ripped away so simply.

 

(Another truth: he would never go without a fight, not even if he wasn’t wanted any longer. He’d fight his way to the board room and say _why_ , say _why not_.)

 

Ollie does not do things in half measures, and that is probably why he loves Rovers in the way he does: all consuming and forcefully, like at any minute he’ll be woken up from it. He will never be able to redo it, he supposes, and he’d rather look back on his career when he’s 80 and say _maybe i did get a card every other match, but i was faithful, i never cheated and i scored the winner in the derby._

 

(The last one is one of the few dreams he has left, a volley from the right side of the box in the 93rd minute in front of an Ashton Gate that had become mute. He thinks about it more often than is safe.)

 

Not ever leaving Rovers, or at least the idea of it, is likely stupid and wholeheartedly restraining on what he could achieve. Like putting a muzzle on a rabid dog, like blinkers on a wild horse, but Ollie needs, wants, to be tamed. Determined to be the one that they talk about like, _he didn’t leave us, not in the hard times, not like some of them. not like the ones who couldn’t handle it._ Determined not to be the one they talk about like _that fucking taylor. yeah, never bleedin forgot that smug little prick. disloyal to the fuckin core, that one._

 

Thinking about how you want to be remembered is a dangerous line of thought, can often to lead to bad decisions made for all the wrong reasons, like _this will be my legacy_.

 

Linesy told Ollie once that when he was 16, 17, 18 at South Glos and Stroud College, he’d think about the chant he’d have if he ever made it, and how he hoped it would be about Bristol. (He wasn’t wrong there.) Nothing about that surprised Ollie, but what did was Chris telling him that he hated it at Rovers, the first few months.

 

Maybe it was the shock and sudden realisation that the club you've always supported isn’t like you thought it was, a feeling that Ollie never had, because he didn’t support Rovers as a young child.

 

It had never occurred to him that what he’d always seen as normal wasn’t to someone who’d only ever seen it from the outside.

 

Linesy also told him that once he’d gotten over the initial strangeness, he’d wanted his photo in a frame on the wall of Rovers legends in the tunnel, among the Holloways, the Bamfords, the Bradfords, among the Stuart Taylor’s of history. He wanted legend status, even if he had to die and go to hell for it to happen.

 

And Ollie, well, his aspirations are never really set in stone, more a take it as it comes kind of person but there is always one thing.

 

 

 _How would you like to be remembered?_ As a man who would do anything for Bristol Rovers. Anything at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ollie saying ‘i won’t leave unless im told im not wanted’ is an actual thing he said and it makes me cry every time
> 
> anyways this int even really a fic its just a stream of conciousness written at 11pm after seeing rovers lose once again today
> 
> xx eve
> 
> tumblr: jordpickford


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